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Trump executive order sparks questions, confusion as fate of immigrant children in custody unclear

The executive order Trump signed was designed to halt the practice of separating families at the border and tamp down the rising national outcry it sparked. Instead, it has raised a barrage of questions about how to reunify the 2,300 children already separated from their families.

McALLEN, Texas — The executive order President Donald Trump signed Wednesday was designed to halt the practice of separating families at the border and tamp down the rising international outcry it sparked.

Instead, it has raised a barrage of new questions. What happens to the more than 2,300 children who have been separated since May? What is the process for reunifying children and parents? Where will newly intercepted families be held? Those concerns have sent immigration attorneys and advocates across the country scrambling to figure out the fate of the families.

"This order may cause more issues than even the family separations," said Rochelle Garza, a Brownsville attorney who represents immigrant families and unaccompanied minors.

Keeping newly apprehended families together entails placing them in immigration detention centers equipped to house families, such as the Karnes County Residential Center in Karnes City, while the adult's criminal and immigration cases play out in court, Garza said. But many of those facilities are near capacity and not an ideal place for families with young children, she said.

"Yes, we want families to be together," Garza said. "But they shouldn’t be together in a detention facility."

As of Thursday, the Karnes County Residential Center housed about 600 immigrants, mostly women and children from Central American countries including Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. That number is only expected to rise, said Curtis Doeddler, a supervising attorney with RAICES, which provides legal screenings for the families.

“That facility is almost at full capacity with 600 people for about the last month or so and that’s a pretty heavy load for that facility,” Doeddler said. “All women there have up to three children with them. Certainly there are more children there than there are women.”

In a statement, Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Administration for Children and Families, which is responsible for housing the children, said his agency is "awaiting further guidance on the implementation of the Executive Order."

"Reunification is always the ultimate goal of those entrusted with the care of unaccompanied alien children," the statement said.

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Border Patrol agents take a group of migrant families to a safer place to be transported after intercepting them near McAllen, Texas, on June 19, 2018.
More than 2,300 children have been separated from their parents at the border as a result of the Trump administration's new "zero tolerance" policy, creating a deepening crisis for the government on how to care for the children. Courtney Sacco, Caller-Times via USA TODAY NETWORK

Lester Morales, 27, from Guatemala and his 3-year-old son, José Fernando wait to be transported to a processing center by U.S. Border Patrol after being found near McAllen, Texas. Hundreds of immigrant parents like Morales are crossing into the U.S. without proper authorization unaware that the process to seek asylum now also includes temporary loss of their children. Courtney Sacco, Caller-Times via USA TODAY NETWORK

Analisa Lopez, 20, and her son Jorge, 3, from Honduras walk to a bus that will bring them to a U.S. Border Patrol processing center after being found near McAllen, Texas.
Agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection pick up the immigrants as they cross into the U.S. then bus them to a nearby processing center where parents are typically separated from their kids while the adults face federal misdemeanor charges for entering the U.S. improperly. Courtney Sacco, Caller-Times via USA TODAY NETWORK

Border Patrol Agent Marcelino Medina stands in a cornfield and is given direction from a helicopter above as he tries to cut off an unauthorized entrant in Mission, Texas. Courtney Sacco, Caller-Times via USA TODAY NETWORK

A migrant is patted down as families from Honduras and Guatemala wait to be taken to a processing center by U.S. Border Patrol after being found near McAllen, Texas. Courtney Sacco, Caller-Times via USA TODAY NETWORK

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Nearby, the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley's respite shelter was crammed with crying kids and anxious parents. Shelter workers said they didn't know why some families were released and reunited while others remained in federal custody.

Sister Norma Pimentel, the shelter's director, said the public should continue questioning the administration's border policies, despite the recent executive order. “I hope the public puts pressure on them and holds them accountable,” she said.

Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, who visited a shelter and detention center in McAllen on Wednesday, agreed that continued pressure is needed.

“I am confident that communities of faith in this country will keep the pressure on, and continue to raise moral voices, until every child is reunited with their parents," he said. "This is a long-term movement to protect the well-being of children and create a just immigration system.”

Trump on Thursday defended his executive order and called on Congress to pass longstanding immigration reform.

"I signed a good executive order but it's limited, no matter how you cut it," he told reporters. "The only real solution is to come together to close the catch-and-release loopholes," he added, referring to the federal policy that allows immigration judges to release immigrants on bond as they await their court date, a period that at times takes several years given backlogs in the immigration court system.

Adding to the confusion is that Immigration enforcement is rarely clear cut. Case in point: 17 immigrants were bused to the federal courthouse in McAllen on Wednesday morning, and then bused back to the detention center without ever being charged. Their fate remains unknown.

U.S. Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Florida, emerged from a meeting on Capitol Hill with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen encouraged that federal agents will soon reunite children they have in custody.

"She says she's going to work to reunite those children with their parents as soon as possible," he said. "This is all good news for the many Republicans and Democrats here on the Hill who have spoken out against this policy and encouraged the administration to change it."

In April, the Trump administration began its "zero tolerance” policy, under which nearly everyone crossing the border without authorization is charged with a federal misdemeanor. Under law, children entering the U.S. alongside adults fall under the Office of Refugee Resettlement's care while those criminal cases are pursued.

The practice of separating families at the border ignited a firestorm of criticism from activists, lawmakers and even members of Trump's family, with Melania Trump and daughter Ivanka Trump urging the president to reverse the practice.

But the four-page executive order Trump signed Wednesday doesn't clarify what to do with the 2,300 children already separated. And the process to reunify them with parents remains unclear.

Garza, the Brownsville attorney, said she's been trying to reunite one of her clients with his 12-year-old daughter for more than two weeks, with no success. The man, who has no prior criminal or immigration record, is being held in an immigration detention facility in South Texas. She's called an 800 number provided by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is responsible for housing the children, several times but operators there won't reveal the child's location.

Even if the father is released on bond while his immigration process continues, he likely won't be able to get his daughter right away, Garza said. The resettlement agency's system for releasing children in custody is designed for unaccompanied minors who reach the U.S.-Mexico border by themselves – not those separated from parents by border agents – and requires a lengthy verification process and home visits, she said.

"We can’t treat these children the same way we treat traditional unaccompanied minors," Garza said. "This is a self-inflicted wound. It's something we've done to ourselves and we need to fix it."